


A time will come

by Lia (Liafic)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-21
Updated: 2010-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-12 02:12:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liafic/pseuds/Lia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A threat to the peace forces the Gundam pilots to rethink their place in a postwar world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memory

His memories of the hijacking come back slowly under the steam and hot water of the showers at Preventers headquarters. Zechs remembers fragments: the sudden numbness, the inability to think straight when the explosion came in a rush of heat and loss of gravity. He remembers seeing sunlight filtering through the walls, hitting the floor in a rush of vertigo and blacking out again, voices over the distant wail of a siren. By the time they pulled into the docking bay of the colony, he had begun to piece together the order of things, and he thought, Space mines, hijacking. But he couldn’t speak, and when two men pulled him out of the ship and he recognised their uniforms, the familiar white bands tied around their arms, he knew.

He fought them, felt the crack of a shoulder against the ground, gasping for breath around the blood in his throat as he stumbled back toward the docking bay. A shuttle, his mind said in a voice that was familiar but not entirely his own. Vision spinning, he threw himself into the closest one, hitting and strangling until its pilot tumbled motionless to the metal floor. He remembers the control panel blinking in front of him, the vibration of the Vernier thrusters as he levelled the shuttle out of the colony, thoughts filtering dimly through the back of his mind in the silence of space. 

He is remembering all of this when Dorothy Catalonia steps into the shower room. 

“Zechs Marquise,” she says, “I thought you would be here.” 

In front of her, amid the dark tiles and the humidity, he stands naked under the water, rivulets of blood and dust flowing over the planes of his body. 

“I was in conference with Une when the notice came in,” she says, by way of explanation. 

“Dorothy,” he says, his voice flat. 

The water turns off, and as he steps out, steam pooling around their ankles, the first thing she notices is the wide swath of bruises across his chest, the skin in stark and violent colours. She doesn’t bother averting her gaze, holding a towel out to him. “You shouldn’t even be walking,” she says, and, almost as an afterthought, “What were you planning to do?” 

He ignores her for a moment, remembering the taste of blood in his mouth and running the towel through his hair. It is cut shorter now, better suited for hard labour on a distant red planet. In the silence, she wonders if he is actually so confident that it doesn’t bother him to be naked in front of her—bruises and heat and the lean tone of his body—or if he is just too tired to care. 

“There were mobile suits on the transport ship,” he says suddenly, and she realises that today is the first time she has heard his voice in almost a year. 

“I know that,” she snaps. “For construction. They’re not even combat ready. Were you planning to hunt them down yourself?” She hands him a set of clothes, jeans and a sweater that is too big for him, and she turns away while he dresses, speaking over her shoulder. “You must realise that you don’t have that sort of power anymore, Milliardo.” 

“Dorothy, spare me,” he says. “You just want to put this fragile peace to the test.” 

From where she stands before the mirror, she turns to stare back at him. She is still wearing the dark skirt and blouse from her meeting with Commander Une, and she looks out of place in the white lights. Her eyes are the pale blue of his childhood summers, years spent running through the manicured gardens of a Russian estate. “I don’t deny that a part of me does,” she says, and she exhales, not quite a laugh, but it echoes oddly in the empty room. “The Gundams are gone. So what will mankind do without those machines breathing down our necks?” 

. 

When Relena pulls her hair up and collects her clothing from where it has been thrown across her bedroom floor, the sun has already set. Through her half-closed curtains, a dull violet light sweeps across the horizon, outlining the cold city of Brussels. She can hear the sound of the shower running, see the light from under the doorway. She figures that it is not too late at night to make coffee, and the kitchen floor is cold under her bare feet as she fills the kettle from the sink. When Heero comes out of the shower, she is sitting cross-legged in bed, pillows propped against the headboard and a steaming mug in her hands. She is going through papers spread out before her, and the lamplight is warm over her bare shoulders and the lace of her camisole. 

“You’re leaving, Heero?” she says, her eyes not leaving her papers. She already knows the answer, but she asks anyway. 

“The broadcast about the hijacking will come out tonight,” he says. “I’ve been assigned field work in Buenos Aires.” 

“Well, by all means.” 

He stares at her with some unreadable expression. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That was—” She is thinking about her brother and remembering a time when Heero never would have tried to justify himself to her. “I’ve already called you a cab,” she finally says. 

After he leaves, swinging his bag over his shoulder as she watches from the balcony, it has somehow become night, wide shafts of moonlight splayed out across the hardwood floor, and it feels in some surreal way like he was never there. Against the quiet hum of late traffic through her window, she finds herself standing by the bedside table, holding the family portrait that she keeps there: she is a little girl in the blue dress, preserved there for her to see every night before she falls asleep and every morning when she wakes up. 

“Father, is it possible that I am being incredibly selfish?” She is talking before she knows it, a stream of consciousness that shudders its way out of her as she runs her fingers absentmindedly over the frame of the picture. “We have achieved true peace, and that is all I was meant to have wanted. So why?” 

His face smiles up at her warmly, frozen in time. He has no answer. 

. 

Quatre calls when Duo is out in the scrap yard, listening to the radio and sifting with ash-covered hands through the latest haul. Spread out on the ground before him are the details of the war: the black limbs of mobile suits, charred almost beyond recognition, heaps of metal that glint in the fluorescent light of the colony. After so many months of working salvage, Duo has nearly desensitised himself to this part of the job. There’s a lack of feeling that descends over him as he searches through the yard, through the dusty remnants of his past. He no longer feels as though he is robbing their graves. 

Hilde appears in the doorway, waving a phone at him, and Duo runs his hands over his trousers to get off the worst of the dirt before he answers the call. 

“I’ve just heard from Miss Relena,” Quatre says. “Is this line secure?” 

“Yeah, secure enough,” Duo says. “What’s up?” 

There’s a pause before Quatre answers, a soft static echoing over the long-distance line between colonies. “The Mars transport ship going through L2,” he says, lowering his voice, “it was hijacked by rebel colonists this morning.” 

Duo leans against the wall, reaching blindly to hold on to the counter. “Are you sure it was a hijacking?” This is the only thing he can think to say, and from the other room, Hilde catches his eye, an unspoken question on her lips. 

“We’re sure,” Quatre says. “Duo, Zechs Marquise was commanding that ship. They used space mines—he just barely escaped.” 

“Any idea which colony it was?” 

“Apparently it was one of the outer colonies of area A,” he says, and then, his voice faraway, “Duo, be careful.” 

When Duo hangs up the phone and tells Hilde, she’s not as shocked as he was. 

“Well, maybe we should have expected something like this,” she says, making notes in the Sweepers log. “It’s no secret that the L2 economy isn’t great, Duo.” 

“I know, but a hijacking? That’s taking things a little too far, don’t you think?” 

“Desperate times . . .” she says. Her sentence hangs unfinished in the air, and out of a distant memory, muted and greyed by the passage of time, Duo hears the voice of an old doctor—Duo, why don’t you _steal_ the Deathscythe?—and he suddenly feels numb.


	2. Our war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old friends reunite amid increasing tensions in the colonies.

The air is warmer in Buenos Aires, and it hits Heero as soon as he steps off the plane, a wave of heat that makes it hard to breathe at first. But he recovers, pulling off his jacket and running his hand through his hair, looking toward the figure waiting on the tarmac. It is Chang Wufei, leaning against the foot of the stairs, his hair longer, taller than he was during the war. But it’s him, and the two fall into an easy familiarity.

“Things are heating up in L2,” Wufei says. They are heading to the parking lot, where a Preventers car is waiting. 

“I heard. Relena left me a message before the plane landed.” 

“So you heard about the mobile suits, as well?” Wufei says, glancing sidelong at Heero as they get into the car. Inside it is cooler, air conditioned. 

“No,” Heero says. 

“Twenty of them. Outfitted for construction work on Mars.” 

“This is classified?” Heero says, before he thinks better of it, and Wufei turns away from the road to cast a sardonic glance at him. 

“You should leave the cover-up to the politicians,” he says. 

“Maybe, but Relena would never think to hide something like this.” 

“You would do it for her if you could. Is that why you’re here?” 

Heero doesn’t answer him. Outside, the city goes by their windows, stone monuments and café tables reduced to blurs and bright colours in the glass. 

“You must have thought of it at some point,” Wufei continues. “We can’t abandon the technology, but if anyone were to get a hold of those mobile suits, all they would have to do is refit them.” 

“Only people like us would think that way,” Heero interrupts him. “It’s why we’re both here.” 

They drive in silence for miles as the cobblestone blocks of the city turn slowly into the never-ending plains of a river valley, and day turns to twilight, and they head north. 

“Preventers has set up camp near the former border,” Wufei suddenly says. “We can’t get any closer to the munitions factory without risking that they’ll destroy the evidence, and I want to do this above board if possible.” They are turning off the main highway, and after a while, in the distance, Heero can see the faint lights of base camp. 

“You could have destroyed it from here,” he says. “Seems like you’re going through too much trouble for nothing.” 

Wufei drives the car into a makeshift lot, and in the glare of the headlights, Heero can make out an armoured truck, parked a ways off and camouflaged with a net. 

“Could be,” Wufei says. “Maybe I’ve become too cautious.” He turns off the ignition, and they are plunged into a sudden night. In the middle of the valley, so far away from the lights of the city, the stars are clear and bright overhead. 

“No,” Heero says. “You’re right. The war is over.” 

In the darkness, Wufei turns to him and exhales sharply. “Our war is over,” he says. “What about the rest of the world?” 

. 

The circus tent is half empty when Duo and Hilde arrive, just as the light in the colony fades from an artificial dusk into the pure dark of night. Running hand in hand, they are just in time to catch the final act as Trowa makes his entrance high above the crowd, plummeting from a suspended platform. 

“They’re just like birds,” Hilde whispers over the music. 

Their bodies rising and falling with each crescendo, Trowa and Catherine spiral through empty air, bright colours twirling around one another. In the darkness of the tent, they are like two doves finally freed from the cage. 

Later, as the last of the crowds filter out, and an empty silence descends over that block of the colony, Catherine pours out mugs of cocoa, and the group gathers in the small kitchen of her trailer. 

“There was such a small crowd tonight,” Catherine says. “Tonight’s our last night before heading to L4, and I wasn’t sure you two could make it out.” 

She is still wearing her stage makeup, and in the doorway behind her, Trowa is pulling on a shirt. 

“Money’s pretty tight in L2,” Duo says. “The scrap yard isn’t really affected, but I think a lot of colonists just don’t have the money to go out anymore.” 

“Oh, Quatre phoned us about the hijacking,” Catherine says suddenly, and Trowa looks at her but says nothing. “I know it’s in bad taste to bring it up,” she stirs her cocoa absently, “but still. How awful!” 

“People out here are desperate, though,” Hilde says. “The war has been over for two years, but in L2 nothing has really changed.” 

“Maybe the colonists expect too much.” Trowa says, and Catherine nods. 

“Maybe that’s true,” she says. “Even on Earth, things aren’t perfect.” 

“But at least they’re stable,” Hilde says. “In space, especially out here, we have to rely so much on resources from Earth that we’re no longer able to be self-sufficient.” 

“So they hijacked a transport ship just to make a statement?” Trowa says. “Sacrificed human lives for what—to lay blame on Earth for the economic problems of the colonies?” 

“Maybe it was worth it,” Hilde says, and she looks up suddenly, meeting Duo’s eyes. In that moment, he feels like he doesn’t know her at all. “For the rebels,” she says, “maybe it was worth it for them.” 

“Nothing is worth starting another war,” Duo says. “Don’t the colonists know that Relena is working day and night to keep this peace alive?” 

There’s a sudden silence, and Duo is looking over at Hilde, at the play of emotions in her eyes. When he looks away, Trowa is staring at him from across the table, his face unreadable. It’s a tense moment, and Catherine waves her hand through the air, some apologetic gesture that no one can interpret. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have brought it up at all.”


	3. A vast and distant place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quatre receives a visitor, and Duo makes a startling discovery.

Quatre is half asleep when his cell phone buzzes on the side table. He answers it in the darkness, his voice coming out as a delirious whisper.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Trowa says over the line, and Quatre is wide awake. 

“Are you already on L4?” He is still whispering, even though he is alone in his flat. It’s instinct that makes him want to be quiet in the darkness. 

“We just got in,” Trowa says. “Cathy and the others are at the hotel.” 

“So where are you?” Quatre flips a lamp on, pulling on a shirt. 

“Outside your place,” Trowa replies, and Quatre almost runs toward his window, looking out to see Trowa standing below, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone as he looks up. 

“I’ll be down in a second,” Quatre says, talking half into the phone and half at the Trowa he can see. “I know a coffeehouse that should still be open.” 

The café is nestled on the corner of the street, only a few blocks from Quatre’s place. When they walk in, Quatre waves at the barista as they take a table behind a cloth screen. The wall is decorated with mosaic tiles in golds and reds, and the aroma of coffee is warm in the air. 

“This is the same place as—” 

“As last time,” Quatre says. “It’s been a while.” 

“Three months,” Trowa says, and then, “I saw Duo last night.” 

Quatre looks down, folding a corner of cloth napkin in his hands. The barista comes by, bringing two steaming mugs of what Trowa assumes is Quatre’s regular order, and they sit in silence before Quatre speaks. 

“I’m responsible,” he says. “For what’s happening in L2, I’m responsible. The colony I destroyed, _that_ caused the crowded conditions, the economic downturn, this whole rebellion. I’m funding reconstruction, but it’s still not enough to prevent more fighting, is it?” 

Trowa stops stirring his coffee and looks across at him. “Stop it,” he says. Quatre looks up sharply. “Stop being hard on yourself. It’s not you, it’s the colonists on L2. It’s those who choose to use violence to end their problems.” 

“Trowa . . .” 

“Mistakes are made during battle, Quatre,” Trowa says. In the dim light of the shop, his eyes are suddenly deep green. “It’s inevitable. Those colonists just need to move past it.” 

“But what makes them different from how we were three years ago?” Quatre says, and his voice is low and bitter. At first, Trowa doesn’t answer. 

“Maybe there is no difference,” he finally says. “Maybe we just need to believe that we did the right thing. Quatre, right now, that’s the only way we can live.” 

When Trowa looks back at him, Quatre is looking away, into some vast and distant place that only he can see. “It never stops, Trowa,” he says quietly, suddenly. “I keep trying, but it never stops.” 

. 

Duo has spent most of his life in space, and everything looks the same after so many years. He knows this colony like he knows all the rest: the whitewashed houses with useless driveways, the carefully planned areas of grass and trees and dirt, the lights that make everyone pale, and the distant, sporadic hum of the orbital adjustment engines. He’s never really thought about whether or not he misses the Earth. When he first touched solid ground three years ago, first saw blue sky and oceans and mountains that went on forever, he was expecting to feel some sort of connection to his home planet, some pull that would tell him, This is the place you should be, Duo. But he didn’t feel anything. 

It’s dusk when he walks home, a slow dimming of light that plunges the colony into darkness within minutes. It is not beautiful; there are no violent colours, no shadows that grow deep and lengthen over the ground. In the distance, Duo can make out the glow of windows, the doorway to his house open and silhouetting Hilde’s figure in the darkness. Her hands on her hips, she is talking to two men who lean against the house, and it’s their postures that set him off—cocky, like idealistic soldiers who’ve never fought a real war—just moments before he can see the white ribbons tied to their sleeves. He is running toward the house before he can stop himself. 

The first thing he thinks—illogically, breath scraping through his throat—is that this colony has somehow betrayed him. In a way, he feels like the colonies owe him just that much, that he can count on them to be distant and sprawling enough to keep him from seeing people that he once tried to kill. But the second thing he thinks, as he runs closer and closer to what could become a heated confrontation, is that he has no gun, and if it comes to a fight, he’s really not sure that he could win anymore. 

“Duo!” Hilde says as she sees him, the anger and confusion etched out across his features. Her eyes are wide, but when the two men step in front of her, she shakes her head. “No, no,” she tells them. 

“Who are you?” one of them says, and Duo moves before he even thinks, shoving him roughly against the wall of the house. 

“Who am I?” Duo hisses, his pulse pounding through him in waves. “Who the fuck are you, coming by my house? Who do you think you are?” 

“Duo, stop it!” Hilde yells, and the other man moves toward him. Duo reacts on instinct, letting the one fall to a heap against the wall, gasping for breath, while he hits the other. The man falls back onto the dirt, and when he looks up, the faint light from the doorway across his face and the back of his hand across his bleeding lip, something like recognition flits across his eyes. 

“You . . .” he says. “Hilde, he’s—you’re that pilot, aren’t you?” 

Suddenly, at those words, Duo is so tired that he can barely breathe. He leans against the wall, his head back, his hands in fists by his sides. “Yeah,” he says, lights dancing behind his eyes. “I’m that pilot.” He can hear Hilde say something, and the sound of the two men walking away, and then he can feel her hand on his back, pushing him into the house. He is too tired to protest, so he lets her push him into a chair, and he stares ahead. 

“I need to explain, Duo,” Hilde says. Her voice sounds quiet in the dimly lit kitchen. “Just hear me out.” 

“Hilde!” Duo says, and it comes out as a sob even though he doesn’t feel anything, only an icy numbness that has settled into his chest. 

“Duo, please! You know that life isn’t getting any better out here—” 

“I fought for a whole fucking year!” he yells, and she flinches. “I fought for the colonies, for every singly ungrateful person out here, and this is what happens?” 

“I have to fight for what I believe in!” she says. “We have the right to fight and make our ideals a reality!” 

“You don’t have the right to do anything,” he hisses. “It isn’t about that anymore. It’s not about rights or—it’s about the sacrifice you’ll be asking from some idealistic kids who don’t know any better.” 

“Duo, this isn’t about you!” 

“You’re goddamn right it isn’t!” Duo yells. “My fight ended a year ago, and you aren’t going to drag me into another meaningless war.” He is up and out of the chair, grabbing a bag from their room and throwing things into it blindly. 

“Where do you plan to go?” Hilde snaps. 

“Mars, Earth—anywhere. I don’t know. I’m not staying with you for this.” 

She sits in the kitchen while he packs, saying nothing, staring into the darkness because she can’t bear to watch. When he opens the front door, her voice is quiet behind him. “I need to live my life believing in the path I’ve chosen,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes and her hands are shaking. 

He leaves without looking back.


	4. The shadow of a boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena is interrupted during a meeting, while Wufei and Heero encounter an unexpected setback.

When Relena receives the message, whispered to her by a page during a break in the discussion, she leaves the parliament compound immediately, saying that she has a personal matter to which she must attend, apologising for her absence during the rest of the session. It is early in the morning, and the air is cold and biting as she descends the stone steps and pulls her coat closer around her. A car is waiting by the gates, and when she tells the driver where to go, he gives her a look but doesn’t say anything, and soon they are driving through the winding streets of Brussels. When they arrive at the motel, the sky is dark and grey, and it has started to snow.

Duo answers the door almost as soon as she knocks, and her breath catches in her throat. 

“Duo, your hair!” she cries before she can think, covering her mouth with her hand. He almost laughs, running his hand over the back of his neck, the space where his braid used to be. 

“I guess it was time for a change,” he says, but his eyes say, Come inside. We have to talk. When she closes the door behind her, he sits on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. 

“What is it?” Relena says, kneeling on the floor in front of him. She takes his wrists in her hands, suddenly noticing the bruising on his fist, the dark shadows under his eyes. “Were you in some kind of fight?” she says. “Duo, please—” 

“Relena, it’s the White Fang,” he says. “They’re starting up again in L2. Hilde . . .” 

“Where is she?” 

“She’s—I don’t know. I just left her.” 

“No, Duo . . .” Relena says, closing her eyes, remembering the determined face and bright eyes of a girl in the hangar of Libra. “What happened?” 

“There were two guys,” he says, “wearing the old White Fang uniforms, from the war. We got into a fight. One of them recognised me, from that broadcast after I was captured.” 

“Hilde was—was she working with them?” 

“Not with them, maybe,” he says. His voice comes out hoarse. Relena realises that she is still holding his hands, that her fingers are tight and shaking around his, and she lets them go, standing and walking aimlessly toward the window. 

“I should have known something like this would happen,” she says. 

“Relena, don’t you dare,” he says. “You aren’t going to blame yourself for this.” He goes to stand by her, looking out over the city, the intertwining streets, the changing colours of the lights below. 

“Are you all right?” she whispers into the silence. 

“We’ve all been through worse,” he says. 

Relena looks up at him, and for a second she sees the shadow of a boy with a gun—don’t look, lady, just walk away—before he becomes himself again. 

. 

Wufei eventually hangs up the vidphone, the image of Sally’s bright eyes and flushed face fading into static. When he turns, Heero is suddenly there, leaning against the entrance of the tent. “How much of that did you hear?” Wufei says. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Heero replies. “I wasn’t listening.” 

They exit the tent together, out into the sun of the river valley, and begin to load heavy sets of reconnaissance equipment into the waiting trucks. Behind them, base camp is a blur of colour and movement. 

“We’re engaged,” Wufei says. “I asked her a few months ago.” 

“Yeah?” Heero says, but he doesn’t say anything else. 

They leave when the sun is high in the sky, the trucks kicking up dust that whirls around them as Heero drives and Wufei peers at the horizon through his binoculars. 

“You and Relena—you’re still together?” Wufei says, his eyes not leaving the road. 

“We were never together,” Heero says, and Wufei doesn’t have the chance to respond, because at that moment, the front of the truck explodes. 

There is a familiar blast of heat, sudden and scorching, and then he is hurtling through the air, landing with a jolting impact several feet away. His face is against the charred ground, and he hears people yelling, the convoy of Preventers trucks coming to a halt along the road. 

“You all right?” a voice comes from somewhere to his left, and Wufei rolls over to see Heero pushing himself off the ground, his arm torn and bloody. Wufei knows that his own shoulder is dislocated, and he checks himself for other injuries before bracing himself and pulling it back into place with a shuddering crack. 

“I’ll live,” he says, gritting the words out from between clenched teeth. A younger agent rushes up to them, wielding a first-aid kit. Behind her, others are beating tarps over the broken inferno of the truck, and the billowing smoke clouds the air, searing their lungs with every breath. 

“A roadside bomb?” Heero says, coughing, as the medic cleans and bandages his arm. 

“Seems that way,” she says. “But the breakdown spectroscopy didn’t even detect it.” 

“It’s the munitions factory,” Heero says. “They must be planting them along the route.” 

Wufei pushes away the sling that the medic is suddenly pushing at him. Wiping blood from a gash at his hairline, he stands slowly and tests the reliability of his legs. “I’m giving the order to return to base camp,” he says, his hand across his mouth. “We didn’t come prepared for this.”


	5. Those who died fighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quatre visits the circus, and Relena discovers some startling information.

Dorothy appears in the doorway of the office early that morning, just as Relena has begun to go over the resolutions passed in her absence. She enters without announcing herself and proceeds to sit in the chair directly across the desk, her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap.

“Dorothy,” Relena says, looking up, “is there something I can do for you?” She hates to ask, and she has a feeling she knows what this is all about, but right now, her thoughts are everywhere but on the documents in front of her. 

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know why I am here, Relena,” Dorothy says. “I want to know why you have yet to accept your invitation to the annual gala.” 

Relena thinks for a moment about asking her to leave, but she supposes that would give her the answer she was looking for, anyway. “You know perfectly well why,” she says instead, and she realises as she says it that it comes out harsh and too forceful. She sighs and puts down her pen, looking up into the pale blue eyes of the woman sitting across from her. “Dorothy, with the current situation in L2, I’m not even sure that I believe in the occasion enough to attend.” 

Dorothy narrows her eyes, sitting perfectly still. “Miss Relena,” she says, lowering her voice, “tell me that you do not sympathise with the ideals of the colonies.” 

Relena wonders if this is the first time that Dorothy has thought to doubt her own actions. Or maybe Dorothy, like herself, has just been doing the best she can with the legacy left by the war, by those who died fighting. 

Suddenly, without warning, she remembers Treize Khushrenada. She remembers standing alone with him in a room in the heart of Bremen, the rising sun throwing his face into contrast. She remembers understanding, for one clear moment, exactly what he planned to do. 

“I don’t know what I believe anymore, Dorothy,” she says quietly, and she realises that there are tears in her eyes. 

. 

The last time Quatre went to the circus, he was five years old. There had been a troupe performing in L4, and he begged his father until Zayid finally relented, laughing. They had gone together and sat in the top row, and his father bought him a candied apple. Quatre can still remember the day perfectly, the bright colours and the happiness, even though years of apathy and war and responsibility fill the space between. 

Tonight, he isn’t going to see the circus. He knows for a fact that the show ended about fifteen minutes ago, but he makes his way through the crowd, weaving between the animal cages and the loud vendors. 

“Quatre.” 

He turns around to see Trowa standing there, holding open a panel of fabric that leads into the back rooms of the big top. Quatre follows him in, and they weave through a maze of hanging partitions and wooden props. 

“I didn’t think you would make it,” Trowa says. As he walks, Quatre can make out the bones of his shoulders standing out sharply against his skin. 

“My meeting ended early,” he replies. This is a lie. Quatre excused himself, and his advisors whispered about it but would never say anything directly. This is just as well, because he could hardly have explained himself if they had. They reach an alcove, among some boxes, and Trowa pulls out a towel and a duffel bag and disappears behind a curtain. 

“I’ll just be a minute,” he says. Quatre can hear the shower running, the heat and steam in the air, and everything smells like charcoal soap. 

In the dim light, Trowa is silhouetted through the curtain, the planes of his body inked in shadow across the fabric. Suddenly, something changes. Quatre feels separate from himself, as if he is watching his own body from far away: his blond hair is messy in the humidity and the steam, the flush painted high across his cheeks, breath caught in his throat. 

“Trowa,” he says, and his voice sounds distant, coming out tight and strangled. He is standing, and he couldn’t stop himself even if he tried, and he pulls aside the curtains. 

Trowa doesn’t turn around, every sinew in his body tense and waiting in the sudden cold. Quatre’s heart races as he steps under the shower, and his hand traces the place where Trowa’s neck meets his shoulder, nervous energy traveling like electricity down his spine and fingertips at the play of muscle and bone translucent through his skin. He presses his lips to that place and hears a sharp intake of breath, and somehow, the hot water drenching his hair and his skin and his clothes, it all makes sense. 

. 

Every political function that Relena has ever attended has been the same, and after three years they all blend together in a whirl of speeches and champagne and string waltzes. She recognises almost everyone in the hall: parliamentarians, journalists, representatives from almost every charitable organisation on Earth and in the colonies. It is the event of the year: this night is the second anniversary of the founding of the Earth Sphere Unified Nations. 

“You think this might be the last?” Duo says from beside her, his voice low. She can’t tell whether he is serious or not, and she would never admit that the same doubt is running through her own mind. This world of politics and treaties that she has inhabited for the past three years of her life no longer holds the same promise that it once did. 

“Duo Maxwell,” a voice says from behind them, and they turn to see Dorothy Catalonia dressed in stunning crimson. “You clean up well.” 

“Dorothy, I can’t even tell whether you’re being sarcastic or not,” Duo says. 

“I’m not,” she says, “but, Miss Relena, I simply must ask, was Heero Yuy not available?” 

Duo feels Relena stiffen, her hand tightening on his arm. 

“No, he—” she stammers before calming herself, tilting her chin higher. “I’m afraid he couldn’t make it this evening.” 

Something like triumph flits across Dorothy’s eyes, and she reaches across the space between them, placing a cool hand on Relena’s bare shoulder and leaning closer. “I suppose that’s the least of your problems, though, isn’t it?” she says before turning on her heel and disappearing into the crowd. 

“I thought you two were friends,” Duo says as Relena tries to calm her breathing and the furious pace of her heart. 

“We are,” she says, sounding tired and defeated. “Dorothy just—she has a unique way of showing her concern.” 

As the night deepens and the balcony doors are closed against the snowy winter, Duo watches Relena move around the room, striking a regal figure in her navy blue gown, greeting dignitaries and dancing with noblemen. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair swept up in dark waves, a permanent demure smile painted on her lips. She is beautiful, he realises in a distant sort of way as he leans against the bar and swirls the ice in his drink. For the first time in almost a day, he thinks of Hilde and wonders when exactly everything changed. 

He almost feels it coming, a sudden change in temperature or a quieting in the conversation. It is a feeling of foreboding that sends chills through him when he looks across the room to see Relena speaking quietly with a butler and walking toward the reception hall. He follows her, leaning against the wall beside her as she takes the call, a pen poised in her hand, writing down something in slanted cursive. He barely hears anything of the conversation. She is speaking in a low and hurried whisper, and her face is drained of colour. When she ends the call and pulls him into an empty alcove, he almost knows what is coming. 

“That was Chris Marley,” she says. “She was calling from the colonies. Duo . . .” 

“Relena, what happened?” he says, although somewhere deep inside, he knows. It’s the same thought that has been running through all of their minds, a steady stream of what ifs that echoes in the moments when sleep won’t come. He just needs her to say it, to make it terrifying and immediate. 

“It’s the leaders of the White Fang,” she says, her voice suddenly cold, empty. “They’ve discovered the identities of the Gundam pilots.”


	6. The most to lose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pilots deal with the aftermath of a revelation, while Wufei and Heero fight a new battle.

“Dorothy,” Quatre says, answering the call on the vidphone, “you realise that it’s almost four in the morning here?”

“And yet you’re wide awake,” she replies, raising an eyebrow. “Not to worry, though,” she adds. “This isn’t a social call.” She is still dressed in her evening gown, her hair framing her face in loose waves of silver, and behind her, Quatre can make out the city of Brussels blanketed in a heavy snowfall. She is making the call from Commander Une’s office, he realises. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure, then?” he says. A cold dread slips over his shoulders when she holds up a slip of paper in front of the screen, and he squints to make out the words _Is this line secure?_

“It is,” he replies, and her face becomes visible once more, her figures ghostly in the pale light from the screen. 

“I’m calling you as a personal favour,” she says. “Miss Relena was going to tell you, but I think that I’ll get the point across much better.” 

“So what is it?” 

“The White Fang,” she says. “They know you were a Gundam pilot.” 

If he is shocked, his face doesn’t show it. It is just like her, he thinks, to break the news so suddenly, so matter of factly, that he doesn’t have time to react. “And the others?” he asks. 

“Yes,” she says. “And the others.” 

“So why are you telling me, Dorothy? There must be something in it for you.” 

She folds her hands on the desk in front of her, leaning closer to the camera. “I told you, Quatre: this is a personal favour,” she says lightly. “I am calling to give you some advice, advice that I think it is in your best interests to follow.” 

“I’m listening.” 

“I know for a fact that you have been donating anonymously toward the reconstruction of the destroyed colony in L2.” 

“Dorothy . . .” he says. His voice is a low growl, a warning. 

“Stop it right now, Quatre,” she snaps. “You’re not like the others. They can change their names and vanish into obscurity, but you will always be in the public eye, and if you keep it up with your penance, it will soon become very obvious that you destroyed a colony.” 

“You’re suggesting that I wash my hands of it?” Quatre says. “I will not, Dorothy.” 

“You will if you want to continue influencing the course this world takes.” 

There is a moment of silence, and Quatre feels suddenly as though he has gone back two years, that they are separated by a field of battle, the emptiness and darkness of space, he in his Sandrock and she in the control room of Libra. “I’m no different than the other pilots, Dorothy,” he says. 

“No,” she says, “you’re not. But you have the most to lose.” 

. 

When the fireworks start, sending showers of sparks and colour over the silent city of Brussels, Relena is immediately reminded of a mobile suit battle, of the report of guns, the hills painted in red and white fire. She knows distantly that this association is due in part to the effects of the champagne, because the scene blurs before her eyes and her face is flushed, even in the cold air of the terrace. She thinks about how pathetic it is that all she can think of right now is past battles, but still she flinches when the deafening echo comes. 

“I’ve never seen fireworks before,” Duo says from behind her, emerging into the night from the warmth of the hall. 

“Really?” Relena says. 

“They could have never managed them on the colonies,” he says. “You’re shivering.” The sound of conversation and music fades as he closes the door behind him and drapes his jacket over her shoulders. It smells like him, like soap and smoke. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. “I don’t know where to go from here.” 

“There’s nothing we can do except wait,” he says, “see if they play their hand.” 

“I know,” she says. “I just feel—restless.” 

“Relena,” he says, but he doesn’t say anything else, draping his arm across her shoulders as they watch the sky slowly grow dark. 

When the hall begins to empty, she decides to walk back to her place, and he says he will escort her there, even though it is a short walk. The streets are silent; it is late at night and cold out, lights strung in the trees along the sidewalk. 

“Do you want to come up?” she says when they reach the door to her building. Her fingers are cold as she tries to find her keys, and she holds the door open for him. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.” 

They take the dimly lit stairs to her apartment, and she unlocks her door and turns on the lights in the narrow entryway, and Duo is almost surprised that she lives in a bachelor suite, because it seems casual and unlike her. He has never thought of Relena Darlian as being available, but he knows that Heero is probably never here, that they are not engaged or even dating. He knows what exists between the two, that essential bond that they will probably never figure out. He used to think that he had that sort of thing with Hilde, but they were much more sensible about it. They moved in together, talked about marriage. He is thinking that all of it didn’t get him very far. 

Relena is still wearing his jacket, and as she slips off her heels and pours out glasses of wine in the kitchen, Duo wanders around the apartment. She has pictures hanging on her wall, clustered together over the mantle of the fireplace. None of them are recent; she is a child with bright eyes on her father’s knee, or a little older, smiling in the heat of an African safari. She isn’t this person anymore, he thinks, and he wonders if she keeps these photos around for the same reason that he keeps a fragment of the Deathscythe in the top drawer of his bedside table: for continuity, to remind himself that his life keeps going. He realises that he forgot that metal shard on L2 when he left, and he wonders if Hilde will find it, if she will keep it or ignore it or throw it away. He realises that maybe, either way, it does not matter to him as much as it once did. 

. 

Wufei leads the team out in the middle of the night, the convoy of trucks winding its way out across the valley, off the main road and under the cover of darkness. He still has doubts about the mission, about resorting to covert tactics and possible violence, but he would never admit it, scanning through his binoculars at the munitions factory that grows darker and closer. 

“Wufei,” Heero says from beside him as he drives, “sometimes it’s worth it.” 

Wufei sits back down. He didn’t think he was that transparent, but maybe it’s just that the same doubts are running through Heero’s mind. “Like what we did in the war was worth it?” he says. 

“Yeah,” Heero says, and then they are silent. 

Wufei signals the convoy to stop about a mile out from the target. The plan is to continue on foot, wading through thickets and shoulder-high grass until they reach the factory. They will separate into two teams, both Heero and Wufei in the advance group. 

This is a familiar feeling, as they crawl through the grass to the tall wire fence surrounding the compound, the exhilaration and uncertainty that floods his senses before battle. But it ends quickly when their position is suddenly illuminated in white lights and sirens, and within seconds, gunfire rings sharply through the air around them. 

“Retreat!” Wufei yells, momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness. He can hear footsteps pounding away from the fence, and beside him Heero is on his feet, returning fire with a cold precision that Wufei remembers well. “Retreat!” he yells again, pulling out his own gun. 

It happens then, amid an explosion in the distance: he hears something like a dull impact, several shots pounding by in rapid succession, and Heero is on the ground. 

Wufei throws himself to the grass. He can hear it, a coughing, choking sound, and then silence. He crawls over to the place where Heero is lying, bleeding out into the red earth of the valley. His own heart is pounding fast and painful in his chest as he reaches out, dragging Heero back into the shelter of the tall grass, bullets flying past them in the night.


	7. Life after war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena receives a phone call, Duo makes a decision, and Quatre says goodbye.

Relena wakes up to the sound of her phone ringing. She doesn’t immediately know where she is, because it’s dark and she feels disoriented somehow, as though the world has become indistinct and distant. She realises that Duo’s arm is around her, that he is pressed against her back, his slow breathing warm against her neck. Her phone silences and starts ringing again within minutes, so she stands up, feeling her way around in the dark. When she answers, her voice is quiet, and there is a long silence.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Lady Une says. 

“What time is it?” 

“Just after four,” Lady replies. “Relena, it’s about Heero Yuy.” 

For one horrible minute, Relena feels as though she cannot breathe. Her heart has stopped. Words filter dimly through her sudden lack of air, words that she cannot piece together. When she hangs up the phone, she is standing shocked, leaning against the counter, her hands pressed together over her heart. That is how Duo finds her. 

“Relena,” he says. She barely recognises him. “What happened?” 

“Heero and Wufei,” she says, her hands white and shaking. Against the silence in the apartment, her voice is quiet. 

“Are they . . .” He can’t finish his sentence, finding the breath knocked out of him by some horrible sort of panic. 

“Heero,” she says, “he was shot, and he’s still not—he’s still unconscious, and they’re not sure he’ll make it.” 

It takes Duo a moment to feel it: the disbelief, the unfocused, surreal quality that envelopes everything. In a few steps, he is holding her, feeling her shoulders shaking against him. None of this is real, he thinks, because these sorts of things don’t happen to them. To Heero, of all people. 

Time begins to move again, and Relena is shaken out of her stillness. She is walking to her closet, pulling down her suitcase and opening drawers, folding her clothes blindly. 

“You’re going to him,” Duo says. He has never doubted it, but he asks nonetheless. 

“Lady has a flight waiting for me,” she says. “I leave in two hours.” 

He sits on the edge of her bed, watching as she moves around the room, something feral and wild in her eyes that contradicts the practiced calm that has slipped over her features. He wonders whether he is the first person to ever see her like this, falling apart. Then again, maybe this is just the breaking point, because isn’t this feeling—the frantic apprehension, the fear that everything is rushing toward some inevitable end—isn’t this exactly how they have all felt, in some deep and hidden place, every single day since falling to the earth? 

“What are you going to do?” Relena suddenly says. She has paused in her folding, a shirt hanging limply from her hands, and she stares at him. He decides without thinking, something that he thought he had stopped doing long ago. 

“I’m going to take care of our identity crisis,” he says. 

“It might not be worth the risk,” she says. 

“No, maybe not, but I don’t want to just disappear.” 

“Even if it means forfeiting your own life?” 

“Relena,” Duo says, “life after war—it isn’t supposed to be like this.” 

She walks over to where he sits, standing in front of him. She raises her hand, as if to reach out to him, and for a moment there is silence, and stillness, and when it breaks he is holding her tightly. His head is against her heart, and she is stroking her hand through his hair, remembering him breathing her name like a litany, his body pressed against her. She is saying, No, you’re right, it’s not supposed to be like this. 

. 

The park is still when Quatre arrives, the quiet sound of birds carrying in the dim light. Trowa is waiting for him, sitting on a bench, his hands buried in the pockets of his black coat, and when he sits down beside him, Quatre stares straight ahead, expressionless. 

“The circus is leaving today,” Trowa says. Quatre was expecting this, but that does not stop the cold, leaden weight that slowly spreads through his chest. 

“Of course,” he says. 

“In light of everything,” Trowa continues, “it’s best for us to go back to Earth.” 

“I don’t blame you,” Quatre says. 

“I know you don’t.” 

There are sounds that echo through the silence: a passing car, distant conversations. A new day is starting, and it begins with the same quiet and acceptance that has always characterised colonial life. 

“Are you going to stay with the circus?” Quatre says. 

“I don’t know yet,” Trowa says. “I’ll see how things play out, if they release our—” 

“Don’t contact me,” Quatre suddenly whispers, his heart racing and his shoulders tense. “I’ll be the first one that they publicise. I can’t hide at all, it would be impossible, so don’t endanger yourself by getting in touch with me.” 

Trowa is silent, his head angled downward and his eyes closed. Moments pass, and finally Quatre moves to leave, but Trowa is suddenly standing, catching hold of his wrist, forcibly turning him so that they are face to face. “Is this it?” he says, his voice flat, his eyes cold. 

“Trowa,” Quatre says, and he starts to say something before cutting himself off, his face twisting, pained and desperate. When he speaks, his voice comes out as a gasp, like coming up from underwater. “Is this going to fade away?” he says. “Will we just move on?” 

Trowa’s hand is cold against his cheek, and Quatre closes his eyes, breathing in. He wants to remember this moment forever, remember the silence and the shuddering pain that pulls from somewhere behind his ribs. He stands there with his eyes closed as Trowa kisses him briefly, coldly, and the sound of retreating footsteps echoes in his mind.


	8. A tame creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorothy pays someone a visit, and Relena remembers the past.

When Zechs answers the door to his room at the hotel, Dorothy doesn’t bother with an explanation as to why exactly she is there. He levels her with a blank stare and steps aside, and she walks into the room and perches on the edge of his bed, her hands folded in her lap while he closes the door behind her. He is in the middle of packing his things, she realises, an open suitcase on the dresser and documents laid out across the desk.

“You’re leaving,” she says. 

“A rendezvous point has been set up in L4,” he says, “until the rebellion is under control.” 

“So you’re leaving to be with Lucrezia Noin,” she clarifies. He is silent. 

She looks to the floor and then, as if having reached some decision, rises, smoothing the folds of her dress and circling him where he stands. She has come directly from the gala, he realises, as the silk of her body presses against his back. She runs her fingers down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Dorothy, what are you doing?” he says, though it is not really a question, and he sounds tired and almost bored. 

She does not answer, and her hand is wandering lower, working the clasp of his belt. She presses her lips to the back of his neck, and he is perfectly still, every muscle in his body tensed to an almost painful state of immobility. When her hand slips under the band of his trousers, his breath catches in a hiss, and his heart is racing despite himself. He closes his eyes, grinding his jaw as heat pulses through him in waves. 

“Stop it,” he says. “Dorothy.” His breath hitches as he speaks, his head tilted back and darkness bordering his vision. When she answers, her words are vibrations across his back. 

“I know you’ve wanted this, Milliardo,” she says. 

“Dorothy!” he hisses, turning, slamming her hard against the wall. He steps back immediately, something like disgust flitting across his features. She is laughing, her face flushed. 

“You’ve become such a tame creature!” she cries. “So tell me, where is the Lightning Baron? Where is the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft that I used to know?” 

As the words leave her mouth, he hates her. He can feel the blood pounding through him, the rage that he has concealed for the past two years burning in his throat and in his chest. He lunges at her, and for a moment, something like fear flickers across her eyes until his fist slams into the wall beside her head. Through layers of clothing, she can feel where he is pressed against her. 

“Things have changed, Dorothy,” he says, gritting it out through his teeth. 

“Nothing has changed!” she snaps. “You are still the same soldier that you were two years ago! And I am still—” She stops, breathing in, and when she raises her eyes to meet his, her face is composed and her voice is calm. “I’ll let you have me,” she says. 

“Don’t.” 

“Stop it, Milliardo!” she cries. “Go back to your red planet, and your girlfriend, but stop pretending to be something you are not!” 

He looks at her for a moment, at the blue light of dawn that floods through the window and illuminates her. He reaches up, strokes his hand through her hair to the back of her neck, and kisses her, slowly. “Why didn’t I die, Dorothy?” he says, but she pulls at his shoulders, bringing him closer, pressing their bodies together until she can feel the frenzied beating of his heart. He pulls her leg around him, pushing her dress up to her waist, and she clutches at his shoulders and closes her eyes, pressing her nails against his skin. 

When she leaves the hotel, just as a white morning has broken over the city, she suddenly understands, with perfect and startling clarity, the question he asked her. She ignores the tears that burn behind her eyes, the sunlit cold that drives at her like so many needles. She is thinking about her future, about what needs to be done now that there is no way of going back to the war, no way of going back to that place where she was sure of herself, and her enemies, and her purpose. 

She realises that she will never see him again. 

. 

The room is quiet and dark, solemn in the same way that every hospital ever built seems to be. There are machines humming in the corner, the dim light from the hallway colouring his face. He is pale, and his lips are pale and his face seems to be painted in contrast, the clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose, the dark shadows under his eyes. From where Relena sits, by the side of the bed, feeling out of place and holding his cold fingers between her own, he looks like an overexposed photograph. 

“I just spoke to the medical team,” Wufei says. He appears suddenly, leaning in the doorway, his shadow long and dark across the tiled floor. 

“Wufei,” Relena says, and she breathes as though she is about to say something else, but she doesn’t. He comes into the room, stands over Heero’s still form, and flips through his medical charts. 

“Has anyone talked to you?” Wufei says. 

“No. No one is telling me anything.” 

“That’s because he isn’t going to make it,” Wufei replies. “No normal person could survive this.” 

He explains to her exactly what happened: the failed mission, the exchange of gunfire, that Heero was shot twice in the chest. It happened quickly, and they waited for backup in the darkness of the valley while he kneeled and coughed blood and eventually lost consciousness. Relena listens, though the words don’t seem to make sense; it’s as though he is speaking some other language that she has to consciously try to understand. This is too surreal, everything too sudden. 

“He is a Gundam pilot,” she says. Her voice sounds distant, not her own. Wufei is quiet, and when he speaks, the tone of his voice changes and loses something, some hard irony that, to her, has always made him sound like himself. 

“Relena, you have to prepare yourself.” 

“I’ve been prepared since the day I met him,” she says. 

She loses track of the time she spends in that room. It seems like days, though it has only been a few hours. Sometimes Wufei comes in and brings her coffee that she places on the side table and forgets. With this body lying in front of her, this body that she just can’t seem to see as Heero, she finds it easier to remember things about him. These are not monumental things, the events that one should remember at a time like this. Instead, she remembers the time they watched the stars through the skylight of her office and he explained to her how it is that the colonies stay in place, or when they bought cheap wine and spent the evening sleeping tangled in each other’s arms on her sofa. 

She wonders why this is, why it is now, when she might never hear his voice again or feel him breathing beside her, that she suddenly realises how important these things are, that what she feels for him is so much more than possession, or familiarity, or even love. If he would just wake up, they could have all the time in the world to figure themselves out.


	9. A thousand reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quatre speaks with an old friend.

“Dorothy,” Quatre says, “I think I’m about to do a very stupid thing.” His image on the screen is entirely calm, his hands folded serenely on the desk in front of him.

“Oh?” Dorothy says. 

“It isn’t a rash decision. I’ve been considering it for a while.” 

The violet sunset streams through the windows of Dorothy’s sun room, where she sits stirring a cup of tea, an abandoned novel laid out across her lap. Her life has taken on a momentary peace, a calm before the storm, and she is perfectly all right with it. “So what is it that you plan to do?” she says. She sounds like she could not care one way or the other, but Quatre is used to this. 

“I suppose I plan to confess my sins,” he says. 

She says nothing, a quiet smile on her lips. He is reminded unsettlingly of Treize Khushrenada. “You want to make a martyr of yourself?” she finally says. 

“No. Not at all, Dorothy. I have to believe that a time will come when humanity will be able to move on and learn something from this war, from the sacrifices that—the sacrifices that we all find ourselves making.” 

He was expecting objections, a thousand reasons why it is a terrible and badly thought-out idea, why he is being completely naïve and unrealistic. He is expecting all of this, counting on it, even, so he is mildly surprised when she replies with a quiet “Are you absolutely sure?” 

Unexpected relief floods through him, and he exhales sharply. “I was so sure you would convince me not to do it,” he says, and she almost smiles. 

“I suppose I have just been fighting you for far too long. But we’ve always understood each other, haven’t we?” 

“We have,” he says. “Since the very beginning.” 

She stands up suddenly. “Wait until tomorrow,” she says. “Wait until tomorrow morning to make the broadcast.” 

“You’re—” 

“Yes. I’ll be on the next flight out.” 

“May I ask why?” 

She smiles her cold and heartbreaking smile, and behind her, the sun drops below the horizon. “Because I belong in space,” she says, “where the curtain is rising on the final act.” 

She is meeting his eyes for the first time in the conversation, her gaze as open and honest as it has ever been. There is something oddly comforting about it, something that he has noticed before but always passed off as just a part of her unique presence. Only now he realises that it is because his own hopes and fears are mirrored there in the pale blue of her eyes. 

The connection cuts abruptly, and in the silence, Quatre is left staring at a dark screen.


End file.
